The Repetition Series
by ravenchel
Summary: Family and fathers and nighttime and the cycles the bind. Because with seven children things always come in repetitions, repeats, redos.
1. Repetition

Repetition  
  
He comes to them in the night, because who in their right mind would seduce his son in the daytime. But perhaps seduce isn't the right word; one would say "teach," and yet another would say "rape."  
  
Or maybe it's a little bit of both.  
  
He comes just after each finishes their fourth year, just old enough to have the inkling of sexuality, but young enough that it lies untapped.  
  
During the summer holidays, when they've stripped to next-to-nothing and sprawled themselves on thin cotton sheets, he enters their room. Tells them to be quiet, tells them that everything is fine. Rocks them to sleep a little too closely for comfort.  
  
And it continues for the whole summer, and they don't get a decent night sleep the whole time, waiting in the predawn for his strong hands and even stronger arms. And the pain and the pleasure and tears and sweat and the belief that they'll never need love again. And then it stops. They each come back at Christmas expecting more, but never again. Never after that summer.  
  
All the hugs and smiles and scrimmage Quidditch matches in the backyard are just for show. All because they think kindness is a good way to stop it from happening again, to the next child. The saccrine sugar sweetness and Gryffindor courage is the icing on a cake that's empty at the core. And it doesn't help anyways.  
  
Percy remembers coming down to the kitchen after the first night. Bill and Charlie are in town, sipping coffee from oversized mugs. Percy looks into their eyes and knows. Knows this is why they turned up for an unexpected visit. Knows he's not the first. Or the second.  
  
Two years later Percy watches the twins from the same table. The others didn't come back this year. He wonders how it would be possible with them. But it's true: Percy is not the last.  
  
Or the second to last.  
  
And now Ginny has finished her fourth year, and the brothers sit around the table in nervous anticipation. The unanswered question reflected in each set of eyes. Molly is cooking bacon, happy to have all her children under one roof for the day and oblivious the nonexistent dialogue that hang in the greasy air.  
  
Then the youngest walks into the kitchen and six sets of eyes suddenly find their coffee to be the most interesting thing in the world. Molly asks her if she'd like some juice, and Arthur strolls in with a kiss to his wife and a nod to the children before Apparating to work. Percy knows he must follow soon.  
  
She sits.  
  
No one dares look. In fact, no one ever looks into Ginny's eyes again. 


	2. Repetition, Repeat

Repetition, Repeat  
  
Bill  
  
Being the oldest boy, Bill had to set a precedent, something for the others to follow. He excelled in academics, was the most popular boy in his year, would eventually become Head Boy, and then be one of the best paid curse breakers at Gringotts.  
  
But that's many years off, and no concern at the moment, because at the moment Bill is 14, lying flat on his stomach with his father's rough forearm pushed against his shoulder blades. His throat is raw from screaming, and there's a silencing charm on the room anyways. He's sweating against the pillow and he feels like he's being ripped open and completely numb at the same time. And something else, something that making him feel almost good.  
  
Being the oldest boy, Bill has no one to explain this to him. He has no understanding eyes to look into. He only has tears, and the feeling like he's a wrong, that's he's done something to make father mad enough to make those sounds at night, to leave the purple bruises on his arms.  
  
During the daytime, Charlie still plays chess with Dad and still smiles under his gaze. Bill sits quiet, tries to be good. But nothing he does stops what's happening.  
  
Being the oldest boy, Bill learns quickly.  
  
Charlie  
  
Charlie's been noticing Bill's eyes lately. As summer holidays approached, when all the other boys were jovial and celebratory, Bill was stoic, and watching Charlie constantly.  
  
Back at the Burrow it's the same way. While he's flying above the house in lazy circles, practicing for the next Quidditch season, Bill is on the stoop beneath, eyes always turned upwards at his younger brother.  
  
At night Charlie learns why, when the door to his new room, shared with Bill, creaks open. His father casts an unintelligible spell on Bill, who's eyes are now glossy and staring straight over to Charlie's bed: he'd been keeping watch at night most of all.  
  
And the bedsprings creak and groan. And father lays down next to son and shushes him, tells him pretty stories and strokes him gently, ever so gently. And when he starts to protest and whimper, father plants a reassuring hand over the little boy's mouth before continuing.  
  
In the morning, after the breakfast plates have been cleared away, Bill is sitting quietly on the front stoop. Charlie walks outside, his Cleansweep slung over his right shoulder, but instead of kicking off for a flight, he sits next to Bill. In silence. Arthur bustles by on his way to work, patting each boy on the top of the head. Bill reaches over a hand to Charlie, after father is gone, and they sit connected by palms and pain for a few hours.  
  
Percy  
  
He comes home for the summer from another year at Hogwarts and he can't wait for his father to take him on a visit to the office. Visits to the Ministry define the whole of Percy's existence.  
  
Percy remembers being seven and sitting in Arthur's big leather chair, his feet barely hanging off the edge of the seat, twisting back and forth as he stacked scrolls in neat little pyramids and weighed the ruby paperweight in his palm. The one that has "#1 Dad" etched into its glossy surface, a gift for Father's Day a few years back. Percy liked to press his little hands over it and make designs by smearing the oil from his fingertips. He would always wipe the stone clean on his shirt afterwards, and place it back on the edge of the desk, insignia facing the door.  
  
Percy is perfection. He's good. He's quiet. He's grown up faster than one should have to; and he enjoys it. Percy wants to be loved, and he wants to be respected, but most of all he wants to be his father.  
  
On the second day of holidays Bill and Charlie come for a surprise visit. When Arthur comes through the door he looks shocked, but Percy bombards him with questions anyways, voice a mile a minute. He asks about the workday and the regulations his department has passed and how he thinks Fudge is handling the latest media blitz on flying carpets. The evening stretches on, and Percy finally stops talking because he is waking up early tomorrow to spend the day at work with his father. Bill and Charlie have been sitting on the couch together in an unnoticed, stony silence.  
  
It's hot that night, the kind of sweltering humidity that creeps over the land and forces every inch of fabric to stick. Heat like fingertips pressed flush on damp skin, heat you can taste like heavy silk on your tongue. Percy's on fire. Burning up from the inside out. He doesn't even know why he cries.  
  
He comes down to breakfast sore, and all he remembers of that day are eyes. Eyes over the rims of coffee mugs, and eyes of the Ministry workers who tell him stories about when he was a little boy, his father's hand clasped on his shoulder. His own eyes reflected red in the glassy paperweight before he throws it across the room and makes a hole in the cheap wall.  
  
Fred & George  
  
Summer's halfway over, and the World Cup is fast approaching. You'd think Fred and George would be ecstatic, but mostly they're just tired.  
  
They sleep in the same bed, with scarlet red sheet and a thin golden comforter that they kick to their ankles. There are two beds in the room, but the one closest to the door has always remained vacant, and they curl up together under the window, counting the stars until they drift off to sleep.  
  
But this summer they aren't getting much sleep at all.  
  
They're strong boys, muscles toned and defined by years of Quidditch, but father's stronger. He shows them how much night after night.  
  
He likes George first, tells him he's his favorite while Fred is pinned under them both. Ignores Fred's screams completely.  
  
Then, when George is half-passed out, he finds a way to keep Fred quiet.  
  
When he leaves, passes through the moonlight briefly before vanishing down the hall, Fred vomits and George rubs his back slowly.  
  
They hate Percy more than ever now, and they don't let him forget it.  
  
The twins are lucky; they are practiced at lies and manipulations. They learn how to smile again, so easy it comes as second nature, and when they Floo to Harry's to pick him up, they can even ignore father's roaming hands in the dark, confined fireplace.  
  
Ron  
  
Ron knew this summer would be difficult, with Voldemort back and Cedric's death hanging over the Wizarding world. If he had known what else this summer meant, he would have almost wished Voldemort destroyed it all that night.  
  
Almost.  
  
Harry will arrive tomorrow, for his requisite summer visit. Ron wonders. Harry's like the seventh son.  
  
He's foolish enough to ask, and as the words slip from his mouth and the bed springs sag from the added weight, he realizes his mistake. Too late. His cheek stings, pink and raw, as father teaches him not to speak out of turn.  
  
Curled up in the sleeping bag at night in some sort of perfect stasis, Harry breathes. Pictures of the Cannons zoom overhead and Ron watches Harry's chest -- ribcage contracting and lungs expanding -- through half- veiled eyes. Then he's yanked back by fingers curled in his mop of red hair and all he can see is the oak-wood headboard.  
  
Harry has no idea.  
  
They leave for Hogwarts tomorrow. Trunks are packed to the brim with books and potions ingredients and extra work robes. Ron goes to his room to find father spelling the locks shut. The stand in silence before Arthur walks by him to the door and plants a soft kiss on his forehead. The train leaves in a few hours. 


	3. Repetition, Final

Repetition, Final  
  
'Ah, this isn't so unfamiliar,' Ginny muses in that part of her brain that is completely separate from her normal thoughts, as Arthur's fingers press into the skin at her hip that Tom once traced with the tip of his fingernail.  
  
Ginny's far past screaming. She did it the first couple of times, in the pale grey moonlight and smoldering heat, but its midsummer now and the screams are long gone. It wasn't for fear of the act that she cried out either, just shock at who it was.  
  
After Tom, it could never shock her again.  
  
Her memories of life are like a copy of a copy, faded around the edge and blurring together. She couldn't tell you about the time when she was five and Bill and Charlie ran their hands over her body while she sat on Bill's knee in the backyard. Or about the time she skinned her knee running away from the twins and Percy put the bandage on it and kissed the boo-boo.  
  
She does remember Percy on top of her, hot and sweaty and looking oh-so- much like Tom. She thinks she may have called him Tom a few times, her fingertips pressed flush into his arm as she moans. But this is later, years from now and before she died.  
  
Now no one seems to look at Ginny anymore. Just a year before Ron had kissed hungrily in the Charms classroom, and now he won't speak to her. The twins have stopped playing practical jokes on her; they treat her like a porcelain doll. Bill and Charlie leave again quickly, so they're gone as always. Percy stays in his room, and she wants very much to crawl under his bed sheets and ask him to tell her about cauldron bottoms again, anything for some normalcy. And she does, though again this is years later.  
  
Father never hurts her, really. Some times towards the end he thrusts hard and leaves a bruise on her upper arm, but otherwise he's so gentle, so quiet. He's not accustomed to a girl's body. Ginny has no muscles, her shoulders are small and compact and her hips are just beginning to curve. She's sure father would have been more pleased with another son, but he'll take what he can get.  
  
Tom seemed unhappy with her in this way too, but how can things like this matter to a memory? That's all Tom is and was; memory. Father will be that too, just as soon as summer is over. Ginny will walk away from it all into the arms of Harry, and when he's tired with her, she'll find comfort in Percy's embrace. And then she'll die.  
  
She knows none of this now, as her small bed frame shudders and rocks. Now all she knows is father and moonlight and half-hidden memories and solitude.  
  
It's true, no one ever looks at Ginny again.  
  
A/n: TBC. Thank you to everyone over in my corner of LJ who helped me keep this going. I love you all more than words can say. 


	4. The Percy Arc: Repetition, Perfect

There are certain moments in Percy's life that he remembers with acute clarity.  
  
His room as a child, off the second floor staircase with the navy-darkness filtering in from the garden window. Scabbers perched on his chest, whispering secrets and promises of power and glory. The smooth-sleek way his hide felt when Percy would lazily run a hand over him, stopping to pinch at the tail.  
  
The Ruby-red paperweight in his palm and a hole in wall at the Ministry. His brother's eyes over the rims of coffee mugs and pressing heat engulfing his skin. Ginny's fingertips pressed against his forearm.  
  
The edge of his prefect badge pressed to the skin of his fingertips. The way it glinted and bobbed in the sunlight, pinned neatly to his chest. The cool metal calmness when he kissed it each night.  
  
The disgust when Penelope tried to touch him, flailing backwards and connecting his shoulder with the headboard sharply. Trembling and telling her to get out, to never come back. The taste of vomit that lingered for hours, and a few of her stray strawberry hairs found on his pillow weeks later.  
  
The brittle pages of the diary retrieved from a Ministry filing cabinet, forgotten years after the raids on the Malfoy house. The slim precision of a fresh quill as he joins ink with paper.  
  
He cannot remember the moment when Tom first kissed him, all air and dust and parchment. Or the moment when he knew this was all wrong. Perhaps because the latter never happened.  
  
Percy doesn't make mistakes. He's perfect. Tom isn't a mistake.  
  
Tom whispers about Ginny's body, Percy's empty glass of vodka catching the low moonlight in a prism and spraying it over the empty pillow case. Her small hands and thin neck that Percy remembers so well. Tom remembers too. Silky thighs and tears and secrets before it all came crashing down.  
  
Percy's not young, not really anymore. He's 30, he should have a wife and kids and family by now. He shouldn't be living in dreams and devoted to the Ministry and the Ministry only. But he is. Ministry by day and dreams by night, and never the twain shall meet.  
  
Tom is so young, and in reality he's dead now, so it doesn't matter anyways. He's a boy, the boy Percy wants to be and never was, the boy that Percy might have been if the rats had their way and if it weren't for ruby paperweights and hot summer nights that fogged his glasses.  
  
Sometimes Percy cries. Tom just stands there, fingertips conjuring snakes of green and purple smoke that twist together before they disappear. Tom always asks about the Chamber. Percy doesn't have the heart to tell him it's destroyed.  
  
Tom doesn't have a heart at all. 


	5. The Percy Arc: Repetition, Unspoken

The Repetition Series, Part 5 The Percy Arc: Repetition, Unspoken  
  
Summary: Sometimes the more that is spoken, the less that is really said.  
  
Warning: Incest. Percy/Ginny. Mentions of further incest.  
  
Dedication: To kitsune, who listened to me ramble today, and to Durendal who is my everlasting beta and friend. Oh, and to Patrick Sullivan, Blaise, AssmonkeyBlack and my favorite family of purebloods.  
  
-----  
  
"Check the shelf over there, why don't you."  
  
Ruffle and clunk of hardback novels being shifted.  
  
"Hmm, can I take the Pirandello and the Donne?"  
  
"Go ahead, I won't be reading them this week."  
  
Scrape of a wooden chair leg against linoleum.  
  
Short silence.  
  
"Have you ever kept a diary, Percy?"  
  
"No, I find them rather pointless."  
  
"I used to keep them, before the Chamber.before Tom."  
  
"Oh"  
  
"I've been thinking of starting up again. One where I write down quotes from my favorite stories and poems."  
  
"That sounds nice"  
  
Gentle clink of china plates placed upon the table, followed by the patter of silverware.  
  
"Where, like a pillow on a bed, A pregnant bank swell'd up, to rest. The violet's reclining head, sat we two, one another's best."  
  
"I've read that before, Ginny"  
  
His teeth grind against the buttery toast.  
  
"I need the salt."  
  
She leans over his lap to grab it and her hair falls just so, past her shoulder blades and below the crook of her elbow, and she looked just like Penny and Percy kissed her.  
  
Mumbled gasps.  
  
They push backwards, past doorframes, stumbling over end tables.  
  
Back back back onto the small futon.  
  
Skin to skin.  
  
Creak.  
  
Groan.  
  
No words, no syllables, no sounds beyond the completely base and guttural.  
  
It's dark, and Percy's hair has lost its auburn-red glow in the muted afternoon, shades drawn.  
  
"Tom..Tom."  
  
She moans.  
  
Fingertips pressed in pale, sweat-shinned skin.  
  
"..Fuck."  
  
Dizzying lights in full purple-yellow behind almost transparent eyelids.  
  
Gasped breathes, shuddering limbs.  
  
They lie side by side. Breathe in, out.  
  
Silence.  
  
Silence.  
  
"He did it to you."  
  
"I don't know what you're talking about."  
  
"Arthur.father.he ---"  
  
"Shut up, Ginny."  
  
" --- He did it to all of us, didn't he."  
  
Not so much a question.  
  
Silence.  
  
Tears.  
  
"He liked to whisper things to me."  
  
"I said shut up, Ginny."  
  
Heartbeat increases.  
  
"Why should I?"  
  
"Because I said so."  
  
"After this..after us, we still can't talk about it."  
  
Shifting, Percy rolls over to his side, faces the wall.  
  
"No."  
  
"Why don't you ever look at me anymore? Even just now, you didn't look at me once."  
  
"Stop it, Ginny."  
  
Tension.  
  
Screaming, hands clenching over unresponsive shoulders.  
  
"Look at me! Somebody has to look at me again! Nobody has --- "  
  
Crunch-squeak of the mattress, body and arms flailing, skin connecting roughly with skin. Fingers curling around her throat and a rough palm covering half her face.  
  
Tears.  
  
"Stop it, Ginny, I said STOP IT"  
  
Twisting, turning, heels digging into the mattress.  
  
"Don't talk about it ever. Don't say another word. Nothing happened - "  
  
Desperate sucking noises against taut skin, eyes open wide and rolling back.  
  
"Nothing ever happened. Nothing"  
  
Muscles, tendons stretching under thumb and forefinger. Heartbeat racing.  
  
"Tom never happened. Bill never happened. Charlie never happened. The twins never happened Ron never happened I never happened You never happened - "  
  
So tight and hot and no more air or breath or movement.  
  
"We didn't happen. Ever."  
  
Silence.  
  
Silence.  
  
"Ginny?"  
  
Tears. Great gasping sobs. Pale limbs and blood-red hair past elbows. Limp. Lifeless. No words, no sounds beyond the most basic. Rocking back and forth.  
  
No answer. 


	6. The Percy Arc: Repetition, Muted

Repetition, Muted  
  
Percy's lucky he's a powerful wizard. More powerful that most people give him credit for. And the Wizarding world is quick to find explanations that suit their needs, so investigations are rare. Just ask Black.  
  
They bury her in the children's section, even though Ginny's no longer a child. She never was, really. But Molly failed to notice, so her plot's between a stillbirth boy and a toddler who ran out in front of one of the city buses when her mother wasn't looking.  
  
It was raining at first, but it's stopped by the time the casket is lowered. Now that air's just humid and the mist is rising off the tops of the gravestones with an almost audible hiss. People's black umbrellas remain open even after the downpour has ceased because the click of the safety latch would be rude. Percy looks down at his perfect black shoes and becomes inordinately occupied with cleaning off the mud and grass bits.  
  
Molly is tearless, having spent all her sorrow over the past days. She stands stoic, and Bill puts his hand on her shoulder. The only person actually sobbing is Harry, and Arthur embraces him tightly. Ron turns away and clutches the top of a gravestone to catch his breath.  
  
There's nothing like a funeral to bring a family together, or so one would like to think. Physically they are all there, but no matter how sad and depressed and pained they are, the twins are still doing inventory in the back of their minds, and a Charlie is worried about a new hatchling. Not all the time, of course. That would be heartless.  
  
Percy stands a ways off, as always, and feels cold. He remembers her warm body, and feels even colder. He's so sick of the cold.  
  
They sit around the same kitchen table later, one chair that should be empty filled by Harry, fingers curled around chipped mugs filled with amber tea. Molly serves tuna sandwiches, but there aren't enough plates to go around so the twins share. The empty cans are stacked in the wastebasket and threatening to topple over.  
  
Percy studies each set of hands intently. Bill's are dull, the hands of somebody who doesn't take much notice of themselves. Charlie has calluses and scratches over every bit of exposed skin, forever marred by his choice of profession. The twins have exactly identical hands, right down to the dips and ridge of their knuckles. Ron has uneven cuticles, and this repulses Percy because he takes grade pride in his, keeping them neat and well manicured, in case the Minister might take notice during an office meeting. Percy, unlike the others, knows that people are watching him constantly. He is smart, to be aware of this fact of life. He knows the moment he forgets to trim his nails will be the exact day Fudge looks at his hands and decides he is no longer fit to be an employee.  
  
His hands have been so dirty recently. He's scrubbed them red and raw, and today is the first time he's felt they are clean again. Even after tossing the handful of brown soil onto Ginny's casket.  
  
Molly sets down the tea kettle and the only way to describe her hands is motherly. Arthur reaches for the handle, and Percy's immediate desire is to break every bone those freckled fingers. Instead he drops two more sugar cubes in his cup and swears he can see a streak of perfect black hair shifting through the window. He stands and goes outside to look.  
  
He closes the door behind him, and then the screen bounces shut with metal finality. The wind starts up, and something else too. It envelopes him and settles, heavy and oppressive, into his soul. And yet Percy knows there is nothing, no one there. The name Tom keeps coming to mind, however. 


	7. Repetition, Redo

Italy is all vineyards in the country. They take the train, and when it breaches the side of the mountain, Percy can see the sea for miles and miles, so ink-blue that when he finally touches it he's almost surprised it rolls off his skin without leaving a stain.  
  
The spend evenings on the shore, Percy perched on a small towel in the high dune-grass, careful not to dirty his suits, and Tom silhouetted black against the sunset and the ocean. He always stands on a rock, and if Percy doesn't blink he swears Tom starts hovering there, just slightly, after a while.  
  
Percy shifts, leans back on elbows and speaks to the sky directly overhead.  
  
"Can you change it."  
  
Percy never questions Tom. Tom never really answers Percy, though.  
  
"Would you want me to."  
  
That night they go back to the small hotel dug into the rock cliff and forget about lineage and sisters and sand dunes in their gasps and moans. Perfect breathy sighs against sunless skin. The bellboys give the pair wayward glances in the elevators when Tom curls against Percy's side. On a good day. Bad days Tom can go for hours without even looking at Percy.  
  
Tom can change; cast a glamour to suit Percy's desires without asking what they are. Wood, Flint, Pucey. The third year Slytherin who isn't a third year anymore that Percy caught wandering the halls as Head Boy. Percy's not sure if Tom is changing him as well, into some forgotten boy of his youth, until they're no longer making love to each other. They weren't ever making love in the first place.  
  
Percy isn't easily satisfied. He knows this conversation, this dialogue, could last days and days, through the whole vacation if it must. But he's come all the way to Italy, all the way to the end of himself, and he has to know.  
  
"Could you?"  
  
There's need in his voice this time; at the café, morning sunlight filtering through Tom's open newspaper. He's reading about local politicians and he's chuckling. He doesn't look up.  
  
"Yes."  
  
It's all swirling color now; blue and green and turquoise in brilliant streaks. It goes red, so crimson that Percy feels that somebody must be pushing their thumbs into his eye sockets to produce such color. Plateaus to yellow, marigold and back to black again.  
  
Percy blinks.  
  
He lying in his bed at the Burrow and he knows what night it is. Fourteen years old and he's just come back from a day at his father's office. He waits.  
  
His closet door is open just barely, and inside are rows and rows of crisp white shirts and grey sweater vests. Most children have some play-clothes, like jeans and T-shirts, but for Percy play-clothes consist of a fancy tie that his father leant him and the navy and green suspenders that buttoned into his trousers.  
  
Percy's still awake at dawn, and when he comes downstairs he finds no pain, no coffee and no older brothers.  
  
The next time the colors overtake him he's less distraught. He thinks to call out, wondering if Tom can hear him.  
  
He has the same little flat, and Ginny reaches across the table to grab the salt and Percy can't shut his eyes, no matter how much he wants to. They're still fully open later, glancing at the curve of Ginny's shoulder when she speaks to him, more unsure than he remembers.  
  
".He did it to you?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Arthur.father.he ---"  
  
At that exact moment, Percy hates Tom more than anything. And it's Tom's face he sees as his fingers curl around Ginny's throat and Tom's voice between the girlish sobs, pleading for his life. Not that Tom has a life.  
  
The light at the café is too bright, and the crossword is mirrored in stark black newsprint against the back of Percy's arm, six-letter-word for puzzle bent at his elbow.  
  
It would be easy to send the table and its contents crashing to the pavement. Or to pick up his butter knife and drive it through the creases in Tom shirt. Pity he'd find the chest cavity empty. And Percy knows this. He's shaking so much the china rattles and Tom turns a page and re- crosses his legs.  
  
Percy doesn't trust himself to speak, but he does anyway. Without malice, without anger or hatred or any semblance of emotion. Percy's coming undone.  
  
"Was it true."  
  
Tom pulls out some creased bills, dropping them on the table as he folds the paper under one arm. His answer is almost lost in the drag of the metal chair scraping backwards.  
  
"What do you think." 


End file.
